Clinton didn’t do much of anything to pay down the total amount of outstanding debt, but he (and Congress!) did have positive effects by balancing the governmen

Clinton didn’t do much of anything to pay down the total amount of outstanding debt, but he (and Congress!) did have positive effects by balancing the government’s budget. Outstanding US government debt chart from FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN The budget was balanced and/or a surplus for the years from 1997-2001, which meant a lot less money was borrowed (or fewer bonds were sold, depending on how you want to look at it.) The percentage of public debt to GDP also fell substantially from 1993-2000, which is a better metric than gross debt levels anyways. Here’s a chart of that from FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S